cannot ping in ad-hoc lan: linux

I have a slackware 13.1 tower computer and an Ubuntu 10.04 netbook. The netbook has an Atheros AR9285 wireless adapter, and I just recently got a Netgear WG111v3 USB wireless for the tower. I got the ndiswrapper driver working for the Netgear, and I have been previously been using the Ubuntu wifi without problem.

My goal is to get an ad-hoc lan set up between the two computers, and it seems that I have almost succeed. The laptop says it is connected, but neither computer can ping the other.

On the laptop I did the same thing with the ip 192.168.1.2, but when that didn't work I typed iwconfig to see if everything was correct and the essid key was scrambled. I then tried using Ubuntu's network manager to connect. I connected to 'lan' and, after I manually set the ip and netmask, it said I had a very strong connection.

Here is the problem. I can't ping either computer. Ping always returns "Destination Host Unreachable." when I try to ping the other computer.

I am currently fairly new to setting up ad-hoc networks and was wondering what I could do to troubleshoot.